Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Media: Comparison between Developing and Developed Countries

Lucie Kvasničková Stanislavská,Klára Margarisová,Ladislav Pilař,Roman Kvasnička

doi:10.3390/su12135255

Lucie Kvasničková Stanislavská, Klára Margarisová + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135255

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Jun 29, 2020
Citations: 35	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Abstract

Social media allow companies to engage with their interest groups, thus enabling them to solidify corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies. The concept of CSR is now well-established for companies in Western countries, and CSR is becoming an increasingly popular topic in developing countries. This study investigated differences in the perception of the term ‘CSR’ on Instagram between developing and developed countries. We analysed 113,628 Instagram messages from 38,590 unique users worldwide. The data were recorded between 19 November 2017 and 11 December 2018. In both developed and developing countries, charity and social good were common features. On the contrary, a difference was identified in the area of sustainability, which is an important part of communication in developed countries, and the area of education, which is an important part of communication in developing countries. Community analysis revealed four dominant communities in developed countries: (1) philanthropic responsibility, (2) environmental sustainability, (3) pleasure from working and (4) start-ups with CSR; and three in developing countries: (1) social and environmental responsibility, (2) philanthropic responsibility and (3) reputation management. These results could facilitate the strategic management of CSR to adapt communication to local environments and company contexts. Our findings could allow managers to focus CSR activities on relevant issues in developing countries and thus differentiate their CSR communication from competing organizations.

Highlights

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the contribution of organisations to wider societal goals through ethical practices, and it is a global phenomenon [1,2,3]
The frequency analysis of the use of the individual hashtags revealed that #charity was the most commonly used hashtag in conjunction with the #csr hashtag in developed countries
Our results demonstrate the possibility of using a new method to research CSR; one which focuses on the analysis of social networks

Summary

Introduction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the contribution of organisations to wider societal goals through ethical practices, and it is a global phenomenon [1,2,3]. In Europe, the concept of CSR stems from the triple bottom line theory (3BL), which is based on the idea that an enterprise bears economic, social and environmental responsibility for its activities [12]; 3BL has been referred to as the three Ps (people, planet and profits) [13]. Most businesses in developing countries recognise the importance of CSR in ensuring long-term business success [21], and for its strong potential to contribute to solving global social problems [22]

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